


While You Were Gone

by rach320



Series: Reluctantly in Love [3]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Smallville, Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, and then I was listening to a song and it just popped into my head, so here you go, someone gave me this idea to have an inbetween time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 11:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rach320/pseuds/rach320
Summary: Snapshots into Lois' life while Clark was off training at the fortress.A companion piece to my Reluctantly in Love series, set between the two main stories.





	While You Were Gone

“You coming out tonight, Lois?”

 

Lois looked up from her bed, where she was on hour three of her paper that was due Monday morning on the ethics of protecting your source. College may be a lot of things, but she would give it this: It was much more interesting studying topics when you chose the classes you were taking. The truth was, she was on top of her coursework. After repeating her senior year of high school, she was taking college seriously. She was going to prove her father wrong and make something of herself, starting with getting a college degree.

 

“I don’t know, Jackie.”

 

“Oh, come on, Lois. You can’t spend the whole weekend holed up in here again.”

 

Jackie was Lois’ freshman roommate. She was loud, gorgeous, and proud. When they first met, Jackie introduced herself as a proud Black woman who didn’t take shit from anyone, let alone her new roommate.

 

Unsurprisingly, they got along well. The only thing that they didn’t see eye to eye on was Lois’ ‘hang-up’ as Jackie put it on her high school boyfriend.

 

At first, Jackie had found their romance sickening, yet adorable. She didn’t quite get the appeal of the farmboy, but Lois had explained that neither had she at first. It had just kinda happened.

 

But when days turned to weeks into months and Lois continued to choose staying in over going out 9 out of 10 times, Jackie’s patience waned. She kept saying how they had so much fun when they went out, how Jackie enjoyed seeing Lois drink frat boys under the table, but that she was tired of seeing Lois stay in at night thinking about a boy who had “left her to go find himself like that weirdo in _Into the Wild_.”

 

Lois couldn’t quite exactly explain why Clark had actually left.

 

“I’m not holing myself up in here, I have a paper to work on.”

 

Jackie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s due Monday.”

 

“Yeah, this Monday.” Lois stressed. “As in, in three days.”

 

“Yeah, three whole days, Lois!” Jackie flopped onto Lois’ bed, sending her papers flying. Grumbling, Lois reorganized her work as Jackie kept on, oblivious. “So be like every other college student and wait until Sunday night to do it in a caffeine-fueled all-nighter.”

 

“Sorry, Jackie. I’ll go out with you when finals are over, I promise.”

 

Jackie’s face fell. “That’s in two weeks. Lois, do you honestly want to look back on your college years and realize that you spent them pining over some farm boy from some small town that no one has ever heard of? I get asked every time I go out but some really cute guys about where my hot roommate is. You have options, girl!”

 

Lois shook her head. Jackie just didn’t get it, didn’t get Clark. Those guys at the party, they were cute. But they weren’t him. Besides, Clark had only been gone a couple of months. Was Lois really supposed to move on from the first guy she had ever loved so quickly?

 

“I promise. After finals. You know that my dad rides me about grades.”

Jackie mumbled a bit but eventually conceded, telling Lois not to wait up before leaving, wearing some hot pink dress that only she could pull off.

 

Taking a deep breath, Lois turned back to her work. Clark had promised that one day, he’d be back. And she didn’t know when, but she knew Clark Kent and when he made a promise, he kept it. Besides, despite Clark’s trepidation, she doubted that Jor-El would keep him there forever. At the end of the day, the artificial intelligence was his father and father’s always wanted what was best for their sons.

 

So yes, he would be back one day. She just had to be patient.

 

~

 

She had had the week from hell. It had started on Monday. She was interning at the Planet while taking a heavy course load and working part time at a coffee shop. To say she was stressed was an understatement. She had gotten a call from Lucy claiming that she would be in Metropolis next weekend and wanted to see her sister, so Lois had to plan her schedule around that. The tentative relationship she had with a fellow intern at the Planet had ended with Mark claiming that she wasn’t “all in.” Lois couldn’t exactly refute that, so they had broken up and now work was super awkward. To top it all off, while working a closing shift at the coffee shop, Lois had spotted her cousin and Lex Luthor swapping spit. Sure, Lois and Chloe weren’t close anymore after their blow-up about Clark’s secret, but she was still her cousin and Lois didn’t want any cousin of hers hanging around Luthors, let alone sharing saliva with one.

 

So, Lois did what she always did when the world got just a bit too much; She went to the Kent farm. Maybe she couldn’t have Clark holding her and telling her that everything would be okay, but she could wrap herself in his flannel shirt and eat his mother’s pie at the very least.

 

“Lois!” Martha smiled warmly as she saw the familiar car pull into the driveway, stopping in front of the barn. “We weren’t expecting you.”

 

Lois blushed, slamming the door to her car shut behind her. “Yeah, sorry, I just… It’s been a long week.”

 

Martha pulled Lois into a hug, holding her close. “You know that you’re always welcome here, Lois. You’re practically family.” The Kent Matriarch pulled back, observing the barely visible tried tear tracks on the younger woman’s cheeks. “Now come on, I just made some cookies. Why don’t we get you settled and you can tell me all about your long week.”

 

Yeah, the farm was just what Lois needed.

 

Martha Kent was just about the best surrogate mother that a girl could ask for. After feeding Lois and letting her rant for at least an hour, Martha had seen Lois deflate, seen the look in her eyes that Martha recognized all too well, and with a gentle nod of her head, pushed Lois towards the barn.

 

She took the steps slowly, tentatively. It had been a while since she had been up here. Lois liked to think of herself as brave and invincible, but so much had happened in this loft, so many pivotal moments in their relationship. Their first real kiss. The last time they had made love. And it was hard to be up here and normally she chickened out, but she knew, just like Martha did, that she needed this, needed to face them.

 

It had almost been four years. Lois was about to graduate from college. Four years without Clark, without his kiss, without his arms wrapped around her. And god was it hard. She was trying, she really was. Some days were better than others. She had thought that maybe she could’ve had a chance at a relationship with Mark. He was a nice guy; decent, kind, smart. And she really, really tried. But he would kiss her and she would be expecting something else, something that Clark would do. And sometimes she would stare into Mark’s eyes and wish they were less grey and more blue.

 

So Lois had been right to end it. She knew that. But it still sucked. All she was doing was trying to honor Clark’s wishes, but all she kept on thinking was that he had to be home soon. Jor-El couldn’t keep him training forever and all she had to do was wait just a little bit longer, and he’d be home.

 

He was just running a little bit late.

 

Lois pulled the red and gold flannel tighter around her as she went to the window, staring out at the stars above. Somewhere out there was where Krypton was. Where Clark was born, where his parents and family had lived and died. And somewhere, Clark was hopefully getting answers to all the questions he had ever had about where he came from, who his parents were, why they didn’t come with him.

 

It made Lois think of her own mother, of how she had scoured family photo albums as a child, hoping for a clue about who her mother was, just how Lois took after her, searching relentlessly for a connection to the woman she loved but never really got to know.

 

God, she hoped that Clark was getting more answers than she did.

 

And then, she did something she hadn’t done since she realized she had fallen irrevocably in love with a farm boy: She talked to her mother.

 

“I miss him, Mom.” She sighed, staring back out at the starry night sky. The stars were so much brighter out here in the country than in the city. “I try to move on but it still hurts, every day. I keep waiting for the pain to fade, for me to get used to his absence, but I don’t. Every time I come home from a long day, I except him to be there. And I know he won’t be, that he hasn’t been for four years and that he’s off fulfilling his destiny and learning about his heritage, but that doesn’t make the absence any easier.

 

“Is this how you felt when Dad would go on missions? And we wouldn’t hear from him for weeks or sometimes months, and you were just playing the waiting game? That’s what I feel like I’m doing right now, just playing a waiting game. Because one day, he’ll be back and I’ll be here.

 

“I just have to keep waiting."

 

~

 

In Lucy’s defense, she had thought it would be a really great idea at the time to have a sisters’ night out.

 

She just didn’t know that it would end like this.

 

It was a rare time where both Lucy and Lois were single, plus Lois had just published a series of articles about how top government officials, including the mayor himself, were siphoning away money that was supposed to be going to combat the rising problem of homelessness in Metropolis. It was not only Lois’ first major series, but had propelled her to a full-fledged reporter and was undeniably Kerth material.

 

So of course, Lucy suggested that they go out to celebrate. Lois hardly went out and Lucy was determined to make her big sister let her hair down like she did when they were younger.

 

And so they had dressed to the nines and got drunk. There were some shots, some drinking competitions, and a little bit of dancing on tables.

 

It was a fantastic night.

 

Lucy had even been impressed to see Lois actually take interest in the men who were hitting on her, dancing with some of the cuter ones.

 

It was a great night. A night to remember. A night Lucy was so glad that she had orchestrated no matter how much she had to plead and beg Lois to agree to it. At least, it was.

 

Until Lois took one shot too many.

 

That’s how Lucy ended up here. Holding Lois’ hair back in the bathroom of her apartment while Lois puked out her guts and whined about how all men sucked.

 

“They just suck!” Lois slurred, wiping her face with the wet towel Lucy handed her.

 

“Mhm.” Lucy mumbled in agreement, checking to see if Lois seemed stable before pulling her back so that they could rest against the porcelain side of the tub. “Men are dogs.”

 

“I mean the mayor, he siphoned funds away from the homeless so he could have a third house! Who does that!”

 

“Shitty people. People are shitty, Lo. It’s like you told me when I started college. People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling and I need to be on the lookout.”

 

Lois nodded along, her head falling comically as she struggled to hold it upright. Lucy chuckled, enjoying seeing her normally well put-together older sister a little disheveled. Lois yanked her head back up with a jolt and Lucy reacted quickly to keep her sister’s head from hitting the shower door.

 

Turning with a sharpness Lucy didn’t predict considering that Lois had just been praying to the porcelain gods, Lois looked determined as she pointed at her younger sister. She swayed slightly as she began speaking, her hazy eyes giving away that she was still quite inebriated and would be for a while longer.

 

“You know who isn’t a bastard coated bastard?”

 

Lucy sighed, feeling that she knew where this was going. “Who?”

 

“Smallville.”

 

To anyone else, the seemingly random mention of the small town would be confusing. But, as the recipient of this drunk rant one too many times, Lucy knew exactly who her older sister was referring to.

 

“Lo—“

 

“No, Clark would never try to steal my article! Never squeeze my boob on the dance floor without asking me!”

 

Lucy cringed, remembering how swiftly Lois had kneed that guy in the balls tonight when his hand had wandered a bit too much while they were dancing. “Okay, come on, it’s time to get you into bed.”

 

Lois continued talking as Lucy helped her stand, leaning against her little sister as she stumbled towards the bed.

 

“He is good and kind and honest. Not to mention really hot.” Lois giggled as she flopped down on her bed, Lucy patiently taking off her heels and jeans. “His arms when they wrap around you…” She bit her lip, sending her sister a sly glance. “And god, Luce, he is just so well-hung, I mean—“

 

“Okay!” Lucy interrupted, really not wanting to know intimate details about her sister’s love life. “It’s time you went to bed. Trust me, you’ll thank me in the morning.”

 

Now finally under the covers, Lois looked up innocently at Lucy, pulling the blankets up to her neck. “I just really miss him, Luce.”

 

Lucy smiled sadly down at her sister. Lois was trying. She went on dates, had even had a few long-term boyfriends, but Clark was always there in the back of her head, her comparison for every date she went on. And no one had lived up to him yet. Lucy doubted that anyone ever would. Everyone saw a woman with a take no prisoners attitude and very few saw the side of her big sister that Lucy was currently seeing; The vulnerable girl who was in love with a boy who had to leave her. The girl who just wanted to be with the man she loved even when it wasn’t possible, but was trudging on regardless.

 

“I know you do, Lo.” Lucy tucked a strand of hair behind Lois’ ear, softly rubbing her back as Lois was lulled to sleep.

 

“He was just—“ Lois yawned, burrowing her head deeper into the pillow. “He wasn’t an average man.”

 

“No, he wasn’t.”

 

“He was… He was a super man. He was my Superman.”

 

Lucy grinned as she noticed that Lois had finally fallen asleep. Getting up, she turned off the light before looking back one last time at her now peacefully sleeping sister. “Don’t worry, Lo, your super man will be back one day. I just know it."

**Author's Note:**

> Someone gave me the idea for this (I've forgotten who, but shout out to you, you know who you are) and I was listening to 'Waiting for Superman' the other day and this popped into my head. And as I've finished my hardest two finals, I had the time to post it tonight. So yay! I'll be back Monday with the first chapter to my next story after my brief hiatus. It will be called Brotherhood so keep an eye out for it!
> 
> First quarter of grad school almost done! Only 12 more to go.
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> P.S. Yes, I totally meant this as a piece that indicates that even though Lois and Clark don't think she knows, Lucy totally knows that Clark is Superman in this universe and knows that he is as soon as Lois names him thanks to her drunk ramblings one time. Take from that what you will.


End file.
